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Musings about the virtual and the real world

A 10 million Venture and other stories

Looks like the “EVE Community” hascollectivewhiplash over the all the changes that are coming along to our game in fast succession. Dev blogs are fired like broadsides of yonder and SiSi gets updated more frequently than the client list of a DC escort service. To me, the changes are one big blur now, I barely got used to Hyperion and read in awe about the new space that is to come.

For our part, the changes have been good. Hyperion brought us this Rokh, we had watched the pilot move around in his hole. When he jumped his capsule to into High Security space, we knew he will be returning and I positioned a bubble-spewing Flycatcher on the inside. Fights on high-sec holes used to be pointless (no pun intended) since the victim could easily slow-boat the 2km or so back into the 5km jump distance. Battleships are now spat out 15km away from the hole and with any luck (ok, and 4 webs + 2 bubbles) they don’t make it. It also helps to turn the tank on and shoot back – neither of which this harmless resident did.

Talking about harmless, Wormholes have always attracted the adventurous, the reckless but also the dangerous and intelligent. When you see a Venture on D-scan in a hole that had recently seen significant activity you assume its a trap, right? And of course we bite and duly whack a 4 day old character by accident.

With new players, I tend to convo them and explain what happens. Most of the time they turn out to be quite cool and relaxed about it all. It tends to go like this:

Taiguen Digrenalt > Sup
Epigene > just wondering – are you a new guy?
Epigene > or an alt of someone?
Taiguen Digrenalt > Yup
Taiguen Digrenalt > New guy
Epigene > really, no BS?
Taiguen Digrenalt > I imagine you were one of the guys that killed me back there
Taiguen Digrenalt > Yah, no BS
Epigene > possibly, not sure
Epigene > ok, my guys feel sorry about that 🙂
Epigene > this was pretty gutsy of you to run wormhole as a new guy
Epigene > who taught you?
Taiguen Digrenalt > Figured going though the wormholes was a better way of getting ores.
Epigene > they are – but its very dangerous
Taiguen Digrenalt > I just followed the tutorials, found a wormhole…and YOLO!
Taiguen Digrenalt > 😛
Epigene > well, you experienced EVE
Epigene > check your wallet
Taiguen Digrenalt > Yep.
Taiguen Digrenalt > Hoshi.
Epigene > do you know about D-scan?
Taiguen Digrenalt > Not to my knowledge
Epigene > ok, I think we need to work a little bit
Epigene > well, I suggest you continue with the tutorials – next time when you want to come to a WH, call me
Epigene > we’ll talk you through it
Taiguen Digrenalt > Oh, well thanks. 🙂
Epigene > no worries. thanks for being a good sport
Epigene > take care and fly dangerously

I wired him 10 million ISK, a tad (ok, a LOT) more than what his venture was worth. The 10mil ISK correspond to 10 minutes of PI for me but I remember the miner who fleeted my newb self one night long ago and wired me ISK just to get me started. It was his kindness that kept me in the game. Could Taiguen have lied? Sure, maybe he was an alt of a bitter vet but I choose not to believe it.

The recent updates to scanning sites seemed to have nearly doubled the number of signatures in our C3 neighbors. These nullsec-Data and Relic sites are sort of interesting as a solo pilot but of course they are even more dangerous than in nullsec. No local means, you really need to have a good idea what is going on around you.

Which this gentleman did not. I found him inside a C3 hacking site zooming around at pretty high speed. Locking / killing an agile Covert Operations ship is not that easy but our combination of fast locking ships and bubbles from my Flycatcher put a sudden end to his adventure. This time, we hit a more experienced character but I still wanted to make sure that he understood what happened. The email exchange went as followed:

From: Epigene
To: J’Anik Cora,

Hi there,

we just killed you – we scanned around you with core probes, watched you for a while. Just wanting to tell you – watch D-scan, maybe get a friend to help you scout. Wormholes are dangerous.

Fly safe, let me know if you are looking for hints about flying in Wormholes

Epigene

PS. and no, I am not an asshole looking for tears.

To which he replied

Re: Just checking in
From: J’Anik Cora
To: Epigene

I was looking at d-scan, not often enough apparently. Was a fair kill, so no tears here.
J’Anik

So, my conscience is clean, the reward that the wormhole changes promise come with additional risk of getting whacked.

So, what else is new? We are under wardec with some 5 man corp who gets neutral logi support from the Marmite Collective – that could be interesting. We had our drunken roam last night and desperately tried to get a fight and get killed since we were all tired – and finally got our wish. The killmail is a bit goofy, we circled the plex and were a bit bored, started shooting at each other. When finally the Succubus landed and ended us, it was a relief, we could shut down and go to sleep.

My skill queue is now 50+ days, not because I am organized, have grand goals or something but because I travel a lot for work and the last thing I want is a message that I ran out of training half way across the country with no means to log in and fix it. I threw in some random Level V skills, that worked well for me. All I need to worry about is that I exceed my clone limit. Oh wait….

We are recruiting by the way – our Fearless Leader has his recruitment post up again. We are who we are – reasonably small and insignificant but with fun in the game and very tolerant of pilots wanting to paint the killboard in any color. We are looking for team players, pilots who want to have a good time and who see EVE what it is, a game, a hobby, a fun place to hang out with spacenerds. Come on in, Wormhole Space has never been more exciting.

I think its a philosophical difference. Eve for me is a diversion from real life, not a valce for frustrations. I will always imagine the man behind the keyboard, not just the ship. This is how i work, this is how my friends innZ3R0 work. This is why eve is my game